Prior to the present invention, there have existed numerous problems in the business of spraying surfaces, particularly rooves, with polyurethane foam, because of the aerosol nature of fine droplets of the spray which travel on the winds great distances, and become deposited on all sorts of objects in the path of the wind, such as on the tops of automobiles and their windshields, and various other objects, as well as onto people in the vicinity. Because of the great tendency of the polyurethane foam droplets to travel and to cause extensive damage noted-above, the conducting of the spraying of rooves has been severly restricted to periods of time when there are a minimum number of persons and objects around that could be harmed or depreciated by deposit of polyurethane foam thereon, and times when the wind factor is very low in velocity. Accordingly, the available periods during which work may be conducted for the spraying of rooves with polyurethane foam has been severly restricted and thereby has caused great economic hardship on persons in this type of business. As a result of the polyurethane foam spraying being limited to periods when there is no substantial breeze or wind and to periods when there are no substantial numbers of automobiles, people and the like around to become subject to damage, the cost for performing the spraying business has been driven upwardly because of the limited amount of times available for safely doing such jobs. Likewise, there has been a major restriction of income that might be brought in as compensation or salary to the sprayer personnel, because of the limited number of jobs that can be performed per week and per month.
Additionally, there have existed problems in efforts to shield wind, because very often the use of a shield results in causing greater wind or air tubulence, as well as it not being normally easy nor practical to move along a shield while spraying, and as well as normally there being a problem of lack of proper ventilation resulting in potential health hazard to the spraying manual personnel.
Another problem associated with efforts to utilize shields, has been the need of a shield against wind, of large size in order to be appropriately effective, but large shield sizes have been accompanied with problems of the force of the wind serving to blow over--possibly onto spraying personnel, or to lift-up the shield and generally to cause more havoc than can be tolerated in a commercial operation that should be effective, efficient and speedy and safe.
A part of the problem accompanying the spraying of roofs with polyurethane foam, is the need of the sprayer (the manual operator) to have a clear view of the surface being sprayed at the moment that the spraying is taking place, i.e. an unobstructed view, in order to have full appreciation and knowledge of the nature and extent of adequate or inadequate spraying of the roof surface. Accordingly, it is important that the wind shield not block the view of the operator, and accordingly that the shield be one which does not become an obstacle between the area being sprayed and the operator. Thus it is important that the sprayer apparatus not be in a separate enclosure from the spraying personnel applying the spray of polyurethane foam.
The filing of the patent application is done solely after a novelty search was conducted, but which search failed to discover any prior patents or other disclosures relating to the present invention's spraying of polyurethane foam from within an enclosure or any other patents relating to the spraying of polyurethane foam while making use of a wind-diverter shield or shed. Sole patents located, believed to be totally non-analagous and directed to unrelated other subject matters not making obvious the present invention relative to the problems to which the present invention is directed, are as follow. The Woolery U.S. Pat. No. 2,424,202 discloses a small enclosure having an open top and an open bottom into which spray is sprayed through the channel thereof thereby formed, onto railroad ties, in use in the treating of railroad ties. In being associated with the treating of railroad ties, the spraying apparatus is carried on a roller that rolls along a rail of the railroad. Another patent is the Lehman U.S. Pat. No. 4,199,896 which discloses a boom-spayer assembly for the spraying of herbicides in a controlled pattern, onto trees, bushes and the like, out from a vehicle or other apparatus from which the liquid is conducted to the sprayer nozzle; the spray is sprayed from the top of a conical closed-top enclosure outwardly downwardly through a bottom open port. Another totally nonanalagous patent is the Houser U.S. Pat. No. 1,460,098 which is merely directed to a portable knock-down shelter, but which has nothing to do with spraying, muchless with the spraying of polyurethan foam onto a roof surface and the problems associated with such an operation.